Browse regulations

This establishes the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, a federal entity with a 23-member board (15 voting, 8 non-voting), corporate officers, and bylaws governing its operations. It's a government corporation created in 1972 to oversee development of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.

This federal corporation violates constitutional federalism by intruding into local urban development—a power reserved to states and localities under the Tenth Amendment. It wastes taxpayer dollars on a function the private sector or DC government could perform more efficiently, while imposing regulatory burdens on development that distort markets and protect incumbent interests. The unseen costs include misallocation of capital, reduced competition, and the perpetuation of bureaucratic missions beyond Congress's enumerated powers.

Federal regulation governing marine sanitation devices (MSDs) to prevent sewage discharge into U.S. waters, establishing design standards, certification procedures, and operational requirements for vessels to protect water quality and public health.

Creates unnecessary compliance costs for small vessel operators while achieving environmental goals could be accomplished through state/local regulation or market incentives. The $2+ trillion federal regulatory burden includes excessive certification bureaucracy that disproportionately harms small businesses and represents federal overreach into traditionally state-managed environmental matters.

This regulation establishes comprehensive requirements for oil tankers and vessels carrying oil in bulk, covering vessel construction standards, discharge monitoring systems, ballast requirements, and operational procedures to prevent oil pollution in U.S. waters. It incorporates international maritime standards and defines technical specifications for double hulls, segregated ballast tanks, and oil discharge monitoring equipment.

This regulation creates massive compliance costs for the shipping industry, distorts market incentives by protecting established players who can afford compliance, and represents federal overreach into maritime commerce that could be handled by international standards and state-level environmental protection. The unseen costs include reduced shipping efficiency, higher consumer prices for transported goods, and barriers to entry for smaller shipping companies.

This Coast Guard regulation requires owners/operators of bridges over navigable U.S. waters to maintain approved navigation lights and signals. It prescribes detailed technical specifications for different bridge types (fixed, swing, lift, etc.), grants District Commanders discretion to modify or exempt requirements based on local conditions, and establishes penalties for violations. The goal is safe navigation through and under bridges by making them visible to vessels, especially at night or in reduced visibility.

Bridges over navigable waters are critical infrastructure where federal coordination is necessary to prevent collisions that could cause loss of life, environmental catastrophes (e.g., oil spills), and economic disruption blocking interstate commerce. The regulation balances detailed engineering standards with necessary flexibility for local conditions. Repealing it would create dangerous gaps in navigation safety, as states have no inherent incentive to coordinate standards across multi-state waterways, and bridge owners lack the expertise to determine adequate lighting without federal guidance. The costs are borne directly by bridge owners, not hidden from the public, and are proportional to the catastrophic risks avoided.

Implements Privacy Act procedures for the National Security Council, governing individual requests for record access, amendment, and appeals, with fee structures and exemptions for classified national security systems.

Diverts scarce national security resources to administrative compliance, creates litigation risks, and imposes agency-like constraints on the NSC despite its unique role as presidential staff, chilling candid documentation.

Historical Treasury regulation (1975-1982) offering special 'Individual Retirement Bonds' as a retirement savings vehicle with tax advantages under IRAs. Bonds had fixed interest rates (6-9%), maturity at age 70½, purchase limits tied to IRA contribution caps, and extensive rules governing issuance, redemption, transfers, and beneficiary designations.

Regulation is obsolete—the bond offering terminated on April 30, 1982. Keeping this 44-year-dead regulation clutters the CFR, undermines knowability of the law, and wastes regulatory overhead. Even when active, it represented flawed industrial policy: government-directed retirement savings with arbitrary limits, tax favoritism for Treasury bonds over private alternatives, and bureaucratic complexity that raised compliance costs for the tiny fraction of Americans who bought these bonds.

Establishes procedures for issuing replacement checks to payees whose U.S. Treasury checks were paid on forged endorsements, funded by the Check Forgery Insurance Fund.

Americans would be worse off without this streamlined administrative remedy; victims of forged government checks, often vulnerable individuals relying on timely payments, would face delays and litigation costs to recover owed funds. The regulation achieves its outcome efficiently through a dedicated fund, avoiding costly individual lawsuits against the government.

Procedures for withdrawing approval of State occupational safety and health plans, including grounds for withdrawal, formal hearing processes, and administrative requirements.

Federal regulation of state occupational safety and health plans exceeds constitutional limits under the Tenth Amendment and creates unnecessary bureaucratic overhead that states could manage independently.

Occupational safety standards for agricultural operations including tractor safety, roll-over protective structures, seat belts, and COVID-19 protocols for hand-labor operations in agricultural establishments.

Imposes $2+ trillion in compliance costs, disproportionately burdens small businesses, and represents federal overreach into state-regulated agricultural activities under the Tenth Amendment.

This regulation establishes procedures for public access to and amendment of individual records maintained by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, including identity verification requirements, appeal processes, and exemptions for confidential sources in personnel and arbitrator records.

This regulation creates unnecessary bureaucratic overhead for record access and amendment procedures that could be handled through existing FOIA processes. The specialized procedures add complexity without meaningful benefit, and the exemptions for confidential sources could be maintained through standard privacy protections rather than creating a separate regulatory framework.

These regulations establish FMCS procedures for responding to subpoenas and FOIA requests, balancing public access to records with the confidentiality of mediation communications and trade secrets. They cover request submission, multi-track processing, fee schedules, commercial information protections, and appeals.

Deletion would eliminate the procedural framework that ensures orderly, consistent compliance with FOIA, risking arbitrary denials or over-disclosure of sensitive mediation records that are vital to FMCS's core mission. The regulated confidentiality protections for internal deliberative information and third-party commercial data would collapse, undermining both effective labor dispute resolution and constitutional due process. These rules achieve transparency while safeguarding privileged communications in a way that ad hoc decision-making cannot, at minimal marginal compliance burden.

This regulation establishes federal minimum wage and overtime protections for domestic service workers in private households, defining covered employees, exemptions for casual babysitters and companions, and recordkeeping requirements.

Federal regulation of private household employment exceeds constitutional limits - domestic service in private homes is a local matter properly governed by state law under the Tenth Amendment, not interstate commerce. The economic burden on families and barriers to entry for workers outweigh any benefits.

This regulation establishes a certificate program allowing employers in retail, service, agriculture, and higher education to employ full-time students at subminimum wages (at least 85% of federal minimum) under conditions claimed to prevent curtailment of employment opportunities and avoid displacing non-student workers. It imposes hours restrictions, requires school verification, mandates extensive recordkeeping, and includes a complex application/review process with temporary authorization provisions.

This regulation violates free market principles by allowing wage discrimination against students and creating a two-tiered labor system. It imposes significant compliance burdens (applications, certificates, recordkeeping) that fall heaviest on small businesses while distorting labor market incentives. The government lacks the knowledge to determine when such exemptions are 'necessary' and the process invites regulatory capture. Students should be free to negotiate wages voluntarily, and employers should be free to hire without bureaucratic interference. The unseen costs include depressed wage standards, potential displacement of non-student workers, and expanded bureaucratic power that erodes the rule of law through complex, unknowable requirements.

This regulation establishes comprehensive standards for the collection, storage, and dissemination of criminal history record information across federal, state, and local criminal justice systems. It creates the Interstate Identification Index System (III) and requires states to implement procedures for data accuracy, security, individual access rights, and limited dissemination to protect privacy while enabling law enforcement operations.

Americans would be worse off if this regulation was deleted because it ensures criminal records are accurate and secure, protects individual privacy rights through access and correction procedures, prevents wrongful arrests from outdated or incorrect information, and maintains the integrity of the criminal justice system that millions of Americans rely on for public safety.

Provides an irrevocable election procedure for pre-1974 retirement plan administrators to apply ERISA's federal participation, vesting, funding, and benefit form provisions to an early plan year between September 1974 and scheduled effective dates.

Obsolete: no eligible plans remain after 50 years. Keeping it inflates CFR size, undermining rule-of-law knowability. Original flaw: federalized private contracts via Commerce Clause, imposing $2T/year compliance burden, disproportionately harming small businesses via 30% higher per-employee costs.